Sunday – Rainy Day Scotland

For no particular reason, here’s a picture of one of my favorite photographs posted on a wall on Saturn. Alas, the reflection from the windows on the glass take away from the beauty.

Today we are docked in Rosyth, a rather industrial port area and former naval base, about 30 minutes from Edinburgh. Oddly enough, Viking did not offer an excursion that goes into Edinburgh proper, a lovely place to visit. Having been there five or six times, we wouldn’t have taken that excursion even had it been offered. One reason for not offering an excursion there today is perhaps because it is Edinburgh Marathon Day and the city would have a slew of road closures.

Instead we picked an excursion to Linlithgow Palace and town. Alas, we finally hit a morning of heavy rain. An umbrella covered bag piper greeted as we disembarked the ship. Linlithgow Palace is a ruin – no roofs! No protection from the rain. We braved the brief foot tour of the Palace and then chose to chill in the bus rather than walk through a rainy town on Sunday morning when most everything was closed anyway. The Palace has a royal history (that will be of little interest to royal disparaging Mianne) and was home to Scottish Kings and Queens of the 15th and 16th centuries. It was the birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots (Queen from the age of 6 days old). But it has been a ruin for a long time and is only very slowly getting restored. The restored chapel is a popular place for weddings. We saw what we could while getting very wet. (Find wet Elaine in her blue raincoat – twice.)

We did get to cross the Firth of Forth bridges on the way to Linlithgow. The new one is a magnificent structure, but I couldn’t get a good picture from the bus. Here’s one from the internet that shows the old bridge (which we crossed going to Linlithgow), the new one (which we crossed going back), and the railroad bridge at the top.

We were back at the ship by 12:30. Our other choice for sightseeing would have been the shuttle bus into close-by Dunfernline (which has its own abbey). It had stopped raining but the skies still looked threatening and we opted to stay aboard ship. Good move because is was pouring again later in the afternoon. Dinner tonight was in the reservations-only Manfredi’s Italian restaurant. We ate their once before earlier on the cruise. They offer a very good Italian style ribeye steak. Elaine had the blackened pork chop. Yum. We ate as we sailed out of Rosyth under the Firth of Force bridges. We also passed by Cunard Lines’ newest ship, just christened recently, the Queen Anne. It joins the QE2, the QM2 and the Victoria in Cunard’s fleet.